New Zealand's Ross Taylor, right, is congratulated by Jacob Oram during their stand of 85 runs off 22 balls against Pakistan at the World Cup. Photograph: Lakruwan Wanniarachchi/AFP/Getty Images

In a manner unfamiliar to any other international cricket team, Pakistan must live in the shadow of their past. It is against the sins of predecessors, and more recent colleagues, that players of the present and the future have and will be scrutinised. Each calamitous fielding error, or batting collapse, every time a bowler produces bowling figures as extravagant as a banker's bonus, or a batsman stagnates a run chase, will be seen in the light of past scandals. Insinuation and innuendo will follow them. The stain will never wash out no matter how hard they scrub.

And so it happened again in Kandy on Tuesday, as Kamran Akmal demonstrated that his wicketkeeping owes more to the Comedy Store than the cricket field and New Zealand's Ross Taylor and Jacob Oram plundered 85 runs from 22 balls at a rate that approached a boundary every single delivery. It was an astounding display of power hitting from the Kiwi pair, and one roundly applauded by Shahid Afridi, whose 37-ball hundred against Sri Lanka 16 years ago remains the fastest in one-day international history. So, he should know.

The Twitterati, of course, needed no second bidding: someone, somewhere is making a lot of money was the general thrust. Maybe such a reaction is inevitable in a World Cup on the subcontinent where there are those just waiting to pounce on the slightest malfunction anywhere to suggest a lack of probity. Already Australia have been forced to respond to bizarre accusations of spot-fixing. For those who like easy targets Pakistan's performance against New Zealand was the equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel.

But no such accusations were levelled at England when they contrived to lose an unloseable match to Ireland thanks to a combination of remarkable batting from Kevin O'Brien and flaky outfielding from a side who had gained a reputation as the best in that regard England have put out. Imagine the furore if that had been Pakistan. Their reputation precedes them.

Is it not time now to cut them a little slack, though? There is no question in my mind that Akmal, someone who has clearly honed his skills clashing the cymbals in the Lahore Pipe Band, is a wicketkeeping nightmare waiting to happen. It is just not that feasible that someone can be so obviously and consistently rubbish on purpose. He has previous in this regard to back that up with estimates suggesting one golden spell of 32 missed catches in 25 Tests. Following his most infamous display of haplessness, during a Test in Sydney, he was suspended pending investigation by the ICC Anti-Corruption and Security Unit. Nothing came of it. Clangers are his house speciality, the mystery only how someone of his staggering incompetence has managed to be selected for more Test matches than Donald Bradman and, as Ian Chappell has succinctly put it, even The Don's batting wouldn't compensate for such hamfistedness.

So let's look instead at the pyrotechnic denouement to the New Zealand innings. It was one of the more remarkable finishes to an innings that had seemed under some measure of opposition control. But Twenty20 cricket has improved hitting skills. Had this been the last four overs of a T20 innings there would have been less cause for amazement. Bowlers go for 20 and more runs per over on a regular basis in T20 and personally I cannot see the difference in this case. Such scores have been conceded before, in a Test match even in Christchurch nine years ago, when Nathan Astle and Chris Cairns caned England's second new ball for 97 runs from seven overs, which included a maiden. No one suspected subterfuge.

Nor should we be surprised at the two batsmen who perpetrated the latest batting carnage. Taylor is by common consent the best New Zealand batsman since Martin Crowe and, with the muscularity that comes from his Samoan background, without doubt its most consistently ferocious hitter. In ODIs his strike rate is 81.32: in T20s it is 116 and he hits as many sixes as fours. Batting in the Indian Premier League two years ago, he hit 81 from 33 balls for Royal Challengers Bangalore to beat Kolkata Knight Riders. This assault should not be considered unexpected from someone who can sit so deep in the crease – behind it even when he goes outside off-stump – and bludgeon over the leg-side so that the game almost transmutes into baseball.

There is Oram, too. Maybe only Yusuf Pathan of India and Chris Gayle have the capacity to hit a ball further than him. His T20 strike rate of 138 makes Taylor seem pedestrian. Against Australia in a Perth T20 he hit 66 from 31 balls with six sixes. In an ODI against the same opposition on the same ground he smashed 101 from 72 balls with another six sixes. Put the two batsmen together and, on form, it is a combustible combination. From nowhere Pakistan found themselves ramraided. They won't be the last.